I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
When a law is being made, either by the president's signing of a bill, the overriding of his veto by both houses of Congress, or by the president's inaction, the next step is its publication. The general rule is that laws take effect fifteen (15) days after their publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
The Official Gazette is the official publication of the Philippine Government.
Going back, if the law hasn't been published it means that it isn't effective yet. Even if the date of the signing appears on the text of the law, so long as it isn't published yet, it hasn't taken effect. This is why a law may be published several months after it was made. Take the BMBE Law, for instance; it was signed by President Arroyo into law in 2002 but published in 2003. The exception to the rule is that if the law provided a different effectivity date. It may be that a law would state that it would take effect several months (or years!) from signing. It could even, if specified, take effect on the date of signature. If no such provision appears, the 15-day rule applies. If this rule is violated, such as in the enforcement of an unpublished law that doesn't specify a particular date of effectivity, the enforcement of such law would violate the constitutional right to due process.
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